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You may find the Colonial Marines' Technical Manual helpful here -- the United States Colonial Marine Corps has numerous conflicts with other nations, including China and Japan, I believe.

http://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-Technical-Manual/dp/1781161313

Edit: IIRC, the manual also has a map of showing the "arms" of human colonization (the US has one, China another, etc). Sadly, I do not have my copy with me. It is an excellent technical reference in general though, if you are curious about the workings of the USCMC, and also has a very good section on space combat.

> Do we know what version they were playing and what level they were?

We can guess that they were playing AD&D based on the DMG that Will put in the donations box.

EDIT: SOLVED - 1e Red Box, third level characters.

Yes, because when Gorman says "a xenomorph may be involved," he's not talking about the movie's aliens. He's using the word—correctly—to refer to an unknown non-terrestrial form of life. He's basically saying, "There may be non-humans of some sort down there."

(The fact that the marines had never before encountered the aliens and Gorman is using "xenomorph" as a generic term is easily provable, since the marines clearly have no fucking idea what the aliens are, how they reproduce, or how to fight them. If Xenomorph-with-a-capital-X actually referred to the movie's eponymous aliens, then none of the marines would be shocked and yelling "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING" etc etc when the Xenomorphs-with-a-capital-X actually show up.)

Nobody seems particularly surprised that "a xenomorph" is involved, so it seems pretty clear that they've encountered other xenomorphs (i.e., other alien life of some sort) before.

Also, they mention Arcturians in conversation ("It don't matter when it's Arcturian!"), and that seems likely to be another non-human race.

If you want to go slightly non-canonical, the Colonial Marines Technical Manual mentions several times that there are lots of non-human sentients in the galaxy.

Kind of. This one is set in an Elseworlds where Batman and Captain America both operated during WW2.

Amazon =)

Really you're just asking who the most powerful character in fiction is, since, as we all know...

If you're really that interested in the possibility of becoming Batman, someone wrote a whole book on it.

Start with these:

Aliens: Earth Hive

Aliens: Nightmare Asylum

Aliens: The Female War

Aliens: Genocide

Aliens: Labyrinth

and you can generally go from there. Anything Steve or Stephanie Perry wrote is usually good, Bischoff did some good Aliens vs Predator stuff, and there are a couple other one-offs that are solid called Aliens: Rogue and Aliens: Harvest.

The key here is to stay away from the newer trilogy and for the love of God don't ever read anything written by Diane Carey. New trilogy for reference:

Alien: Out of the Shadows

Alien: Sea of Sorrows

Alien: River of Pain is the third part of the new "trilogy" and I haven't read it yet, but the other two were awful, so I don't have high hopes.

John Birmingham covers a scenario like this in these books: http://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Choice-Axis-Time-Trilogy/dp/0345457137

I recommend the book First Contract by Greg Costikyan. Earth quickly becomes a third-world manufacturer, and has to reinvent itself.

I just found out that Costikyan is also the co-creator of the RPG Toon.

It's in the book Becoming Batman (this somehow turned up on my "recommended" list from Amazon a couple of years ago.

A Different Kingdom perhaps?

DJ_Esus has got it sussed! A Different Kingdom by Paul Kearney.

Genocide (Aliens) is an entire book centered around a drug manufactured from the xenomorphs biology.

Here is the mobile version of your link

This is a bit late, but this might be up your alley: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801890632/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Also try the book Becoming Batman. http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Batman-The-Possibility-Superhero/dp/0801890632

I got a book for ya...

I was thinking The Panda's Thumb

Less than five bucks, what a bargain.

$5.47

Sure, you can grab a copy for yourself.

For a tome that threatens to unmake reality itself, the Men of Science at Miskatonic University have been pretty loose with the reprint rights.

For more information on how human space is governed, please see: Powers that Be by Anne McCaffrey. And always remember, the Corporation owns your ass.

According to google image search, Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections.

Ffs.

https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Sith-Paul-S-Kemp/dp/034551145X

Read it, man.

Neil Stephenson wrote Seveneves with this premise, and it's supposedly somewhat scientifically accurate. Basically the debris would keep smashing itself into pieces that would spin off into the earth, and the constant bombardment would heat the atmosphere up and kill all life (except maybe some things in the deeper parts of the ocean).

This makes me think of Leo Frankowski's The Cross-Time Engineer. It's kind of a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court idea, where a modern-day Polish grad student gets whisked away to 13th century Poland, where one of the first things he realizes is that the Mongols are going to show up in 1240 AD and kill everybody.

You might want to read this book. It's sort of a soft science fiction about hard science fiction, and an absolute riot, although it seems they've ruined the cover, which originally looked like this.

Brennan-Monster lived to see himself get blamed for any unexplained abductions or course changes in the Belt, as well as random abductions on Earth.

If you haven't already, you should check out the SF classic novel 'The Forever War' ( https://www.amazon.com/Forever-War-Joe-Haldeman/dp/0312536631 )

It deals with exactly this, with soldiers fighting on the other side of the galaxy struggling to remember what they are fighting for, because Earth changes so much in their decades-long tours.

There was actually a book that tells the story of the guy who had the job of pulling the lever to fire the superweapon.

I believe after Alderaan, he began to regret his job and question it, and at the Battle of Yavin IV, he hesitated a second, which gave Luke just enough time to fire his torpedoes and destroy the first Death Star.

Edit: I think this is the book in question.